The Kingdom Movement

A Literary & Pastoral Study Guide to the Gospel of Matthew

The Inspiration of Matthew,

by Caravaggio

On the King's Errand

Devotional Reflections on Matthew's Gospel

God Will Be With You…in a New Way:  Mt.1:22 - 23 

^1:22 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ²³ ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel,’ which translated means, ‘God with us.’

          A young man named Alfred* went to the hospital after an unfortunate incident that happened to him while he was homeless.  Alfred wasn’t a Christian, but he did wonder if God existed.  While he was lying there in his hospital bed, he had a vision of God.  God appeared to him in the form of…a human baby.  At first, Alfred was surprised, and then became angry!  He expected God to appear in the form of a powerful or wise older man.  He wanted to argue with God, curse Him, or even hit Him.  He wanted God to be powerful enough to take his resentment.  But God appearing to him as a baby startled him and took him aback.  Who hates babies?  We’ll see that King Herod will stoop so low as to kill babies in Matthew 2:16 – 23.  But Alfred wasn’t a King Herod. 

          For most of us, a baby’s vulnerability makes us pause.  When a baby in a stroller rolls by, we melt just a little.  Our hearts feel a desire to protect and serve a baby.  What, then, is the meaning of God entering into our world in the form of the baby Jesus?

          God is vulnerable to us because He is love.  He is not simply ‘raw power.’  He does not have the ability to manipulate us like robots or pummel us into submission, because it is not within His moral character to do so.  When Jesus said, ‘As the Father has loved me, so I love you’ (Jn.15:17), I think he was, at least, referring to the way the Father does not coerce the Son to love the Father back.  The love with which the Father and Son love one another in the Holy Spirit is the love God extends to us.  And ever since the day God created Adam and Eve in His own image, He invested Himself into us in a way that made human beings His partners on the earth.  And because He has always wanted our willing partnership, based on our own free will, He approaches us, fundamentally, in weakness and humility. 

          So, despite all His acts of power in the Old Testament, and even all the miracles which Jesus will do in the New Testament, God has a kind of weakness with us.  He created Adam with a longing which He Himself could not directly fill, which only Eve could.  Then, Adam and Eve exiled Him from the creation.  Cain developed a hatred of God’s image so deep that he killed his brother Abel.  Humanity revolted against Him in the days of Noah with violence and bloodshed.  Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah and Rachel, and the twelve tribes of Israel they birthed at times stumbled and took many steps backward.  On the long-anticipated wedding day between God and Israel at Mount Sinai, Israel committed spiritual fornication with someone else, the golden calf.  In the wilderness, they complained bitterly against Him, longed for slavery in Egypt, and did not have the courage to take their inheritance.  In the promised land, they rejected Him from being king, rejected their vocation to be a unique people without a human king, and chose Saul to be their king.  Then they looked to the foreign powers Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon for protection instead of Him, which was disastrous.  At times, God’s love was acknowledged and proclaimed only by a few prophets in Israel.  Meanwhile, with all the Gentile peoples, God whispered to them through the creation and their conscience, enduring their rejection and false ideas about Him.  He waited patiently for Israel to be a suitable partner to Him.  And then, when the time was right, He worked through one Israelite couple who reflected His own weakness in their vulnerability, love, and hope:  Mary and Joseph.  In Mary’s womb, God wrapped Himself in human nature to communicate how He has always related to us:  vulnerably.

          Alfred’s vision of God as a baby unnerved him terribly, but as of this writing, helped him to seek God and appreciate Jesus.  Perhaps we can pain and wound God more deeply than we ever realized?